Savvy Searcher

Electronic Journals

This past spring, Himmelfarb Library rapidly expanded its access to electronic journals. While the former collection of electronic journals hovered around 100, Himmelfarb Library now offers access to over 500 journals in a full-text electronic format. All of these journals are available from the E-Journals page, which is linked from the main menu on the library website. All journal listed on the E-Journals page are available full-text online. ACCESS POINTS - The new collection of electronic journals provides a variety of access points for individual titles. Titles continue to be available from publisher websites, as well as through database vendors such as Ovid. Additional titles are available through databases such as MDConsult, ABI/INFORM, and LEXIS/NEXIS. For each journal, on-campus access is indicated in the first column and off-campus access is indicated in the second column.

MULTIPLE ACCESS POINTS - Some electronic journals have multiple access points. As you see in the page image above, the American Journal of Epidemiology, the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, and the American Journal of Law and Medicine are all available via multiple access points. As you gain familiarity with electronic journals, you may find that you prefer one access point over another. For example, Publisher and ABI/INFORM access points are more likely to provide the article in PDF format so that it looks like the actual journal pages, while Ovid or MDConsult may provide additional years of back issues. In general however, all access points will provide full-text and images from the journals.

FINDING AN ARTICLE -- Some access points (Publisher and Ovid) link to a website that contains a list of available issues for that particular journal. Other access points (MDConsult, ABI/INFORM, and LEXIS/NEXIS) link to databases, but you must search for the particular article that you want within that database. While this isn't the seamless access we want to provide, we thought that our users would value knowing where to find the full-text of journals even if it required some additional mouse clicks on their part. Complete instructions for locating electronic journals via the various access points are available at the bottom of the E-Journals webpage under "Key Code." In general, all off-campus links except 'Publisher' (seen in the second column above) require that users log into Aladin using their Social Security Number in order to access the appropriate database.

BACK ISSUES - In deciding which journals to include on the E-Journals page, we made an effort to be sure that not only current issues of each journal are available, but also several years of back issues. Because of the variety of access points, there's no hard rule for how many years of back issues are available for a particular journal. Some provide access back to the early 1990's, while others provide access beginning in 1998. In general, the coverage for most electronic journals begins at about 1995. TROUBLESHOOTING - If you have any difficulty accessing the titles available from the E-Journals page, don't hesitate to contact us. You can telephone Himmelfarb Library's Reference Desk at
(202) 994-2850 or send an email to library@gwumc.edu.